Not much to say between San Diego and returning the car at LAX. We spent a couple of lazy days at Huntington Beach, but neither of us were very well so we didn’t do much apart from lay on the beach. We stayed in a nice hotel next to LAX the night before our flight, shame it was in Inglewood, but we ordered take away to our room so it wasn’t too bad. It was a long last day in America, as we had to return our car by 12 noon, and our flight wasn’t until 23:40. So we pretty much saw the whole of the airport, it was like that film with Tom Hanks, The Terminal. The one good thing about hanging around in the airport all day was that we did get to see, Mick Jagger in the flesh and wrinkles, he was coming of a flight and he walked right past us. We also saw, ‘Taub’ from House MD, who we later researched his real name is Peter Jacobson.

The flight was on time, and we had picked great seats, thanks to Ste’s research. Two seats, one window, one aisle, not too far from the toilets and with a wider aisle too so nobody would bump into us. The flight wasn’t too bad at all, considering it was 14 hours overnight and going across the date line. The seats were comfortable and the food was nice. Now we’ve flown qantas, we never want to fly with anybody else.

On landing in New Zealand, it was a refreshing 13 degrees, then it started raining. Just like home! We are staying at a backpackers hostel in the trendy Ponsonby area, the hostel is nice, could do with more heaters though. We are looking forward to the next leg of our journey!